Psychological Namespace

Formerly Experiential (@experience). Renamed to Psychological (@psychological) to cover the full psychological domain — perception, sensation, emotion, cognition, and volition/desiderative attitude — rather than only experience. The rename is lexical; the membership criterion (a sentient participant in a mental/perceptual event) is unchanged and is now stated explicitly as the Senser gate (Test 1).

Core Definition

Psychological frames foreground a sentient participant — an Experiencer or a Cognizer — undergoing a mental, perceptual, somatic, or attitudinal event. The primary semantic content is the psychological event itself — perception, emotion, cognition, bodily sensation, or volitional attitude — from the participant's perspective. No physical change in the world is required; the event occurs in psychological or sensory space.

Formal template:

PSYCH(Experiencer ⊕ Cognizer, [Stimulus | Content], Mental_condition)

Key participants:

• Experiencer ⊕ Cognizer — the sentient participant. The two are mutually exclusive within a frame (FrameNet Excludes pattern): Experiencer for perception / sensation / emotion (undergoes a stimulus); Cognizer for cognition / belief / attitude (entertains a content).
• Stimulus — the external trigger or object of a perception or emotion (optional; entity or event).
• Content — the object of a cognitive or attitudinal member (optional; a proposition or event — a state of affairs — not a mere trigger).

Scope

Includes:

• Sensory perception: João viu Maria (João saw Maria), Maria ouviu o barulho (Maria heard the noise)
• Emotion: João ama Maria (João loves Maria), Maria teme o escuro (Maria fears the dark)
• Cognition: João sabe a resposta (João knows the answer), Maria entendeu (Maria understood)
• Bodily sensation: A perna de João dói (João's leg hurts), João tem fome (João is hungry)
• Volition / desiderative attitude: João quer sair (João wants to leave), Maria espera vencer (Maria hopes to win)
• Senser-bearing epistemic state: João tem certeza de que venceu (João is certain he won — the Cognizer/Pensador is required)

Excludes — see other namespaces:

• Physical action by a volitional agent → Action (João correu)
• Agent causes physical change in a Patient → Causative (João quebrou o vaso)
• Non-sentient entity undergoes state change → Inchoative (O vaso quebrou)
• Property or relation holds statically of an entity → Stative (João é alto)
• Senser-less modal predication of a proposition (possibility, probability, with no sentient participant) → Attribute (É provável que chova). See the vs. Attribute boundary below — this is the sharpest new boundary.

Critical boundaries:

• Stimulus-subject psych verbs (O filme emocionou Maria) may look Causative but are Psychological — the Experiencer (Maria) is the semantic focus, not a physical result state.
• Reflexive emotional inchoatives (João se alegrou) sit at the Psychological/Inchoative boundary — classify as Psychological when the psychological domain is primary, Inchoative when the change of state is primary.
• Epistemic frames split by the Senser gate: Certeza (certainty of a thinker, Cognizer required) is Psychological; Possibilidade / Probabilidade (likelihood of a proposition, no Senser) is Attribute.

Subtypes

By psychological domain:

Note on the Volition / attitude subtype. These desiderative and intentional members (querer, esperar, pretender) take a sentient participant (Cognizer) and an object that is a proposition or event — mapped to Content (a state of affairs), not to Stimulus. They pass the Senser gate and the domain test, so they belong here. This subtype is introduced as a recognized member of the namespace but is not fully developed with its own diagnostics in this revision; treat the Senser gate plus the Content-takes-a-proposition observation as sufficient guidance for now, and develop dedicated tests later if the class warrants it. Senser-less modality (possibility/probability of a proposition) is not part of this subtype — it is excluded to Attribute.

By volitional control — the key internal distinction:

The controlled variant is the agentive reading of the sentient participant; it does not move the frame out of the namespace (domain takes precedence over agentivity — see Aspect note). Portuguese systematically pairs controlled and uncontrolled verbs for the same sensory domain:

By argument structure (psych verb alternation): Many psychological verbs alternate between frames depending on which participant is subject. These alternations are perspective relationships, not separate namespaces (cf. the Psychological↔Causative and Psychological↔Inchoative perspective pairs):

Aspect: Psychological frames span the full aspectual range — stative (João ama Maria; João sabe), eventive/achievement (João viu Maria; João entendeu), and inchoative (João se apaixonou). Aspect does not determine namespace membership — the psychological domain does. This is the governing principle: a stative-aspect psychological frame (saber, amar) stays here, it does not migrate to Stative.

Diagnostic Tests

Test 1 — Senser gate (sentient participant required)

Does the frame require a sentient participant — an Experiencer or a Cognizer — as its primary participant? This is the membership gate.

✓ João viu Maria (João = sentient Experiencer) → PSYCHOLOGICAL
✓ João tem certeza de que venceu (João = Cognizer/Pensador) → PSYCHOLOGICAL
✗ A pedra caiu (pedra ≠ sentient) → NOT PSYCHOLOGICAL (Eventive)
✗ É provável que chova (no sentient participant) → NOT PSYCHOLOGICAL (Attribute — modal-attribute of a proposition)

The last line is the decisive exclusion: a frame predicating possibility or probability of a proposition, with no Senser, is a modal Attribute, not a psychological event.

Test 2 — Mental / perceptual domain

Does the event occur in psychological or sensory space rather than the physical world?

✓ João sabe a resposta (mental state — knowledge) → PSYCHOLOGICAL
✓ Maria sentiu dor (somatic sensation) → PSYCHOLOGICAL
✗ João quebrou o vaso (physical change in world) → NOT PSYCHOLOGICAL (Causative)

Test 3 — Experiencer vs. Cognizer (which sentient FE)

Is the object of the event a trigger/stimulus (→ Experiencer + Stimulus) or a proposition/content (→ Cognizer + Content)?

✓ Maria ouviu o barulho (stimulus = barulho) → EXPERIENCER + STIMULUS (perception/emotion)
✓ João acredita que venceu (content = a proposition) → COGNIZER + CONTENT (cognition)
✓ João quer sair (content = a state of affairs) → COGNIZER + CONTENT (volition/attitude)

Experiencer and Cognizer are mutually exclusive within a frame (Excludes).

Test 4 — Control test (agentive vs. non-agentive)

Can the frame take an imperative directed at the sentient participant?

✓ Olhe! / Escute! / Pense nisso! (controlled) → agentive reading
✗ *Veja Maria! / *Ame João! / *Tenha fome! (uncontrolled) → non-agentive reading

Either way the frame remains Psychological; the test classifies the internal controlled/uncontrolled variant, not namespace membership.

Test 5 — Progressive test (stative vs. eventive within Psychological)

Does the frame resist the progressive?

Stative psychological (resists progressive):
✗ *João está sabendo a resposta → STATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL (saber)
✗ *Maria está amando João → STATIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL (amar)

Eventive psychological (accepts progressive):
✓ João está olhando para Maria → EVENTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL (olhar)
✓ Maria está pensando sobre o problema → EVENTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL (pensar)

Test 6 — Psych alternation

Does the verb participate in the Experiencer-subject / Stimulus-subject alternation?

✓ João teme o cachorro ↔ O cachorro assusta João → PSYCH VERB PAIR
✓ João gosta do filme ↔ O filme agrada João → PSYCH VERB PAIR
✗ João viu Maria ↔ *Maria viu João (no role-reversal alternation) → PERCEPTION (not psych alternation)

Comparison with Adjacent Namespaces

vs. Action: Both require a sentient subject, but Action frames profile physical observable activities (João correu). Psychological frames profile internal mental or perceptual events (João pensou, João viu). Cognitive activities (pensar, planejar) can border both — classify as Psychological when the mental content or stimulus-response relationship is primary, Action when the volitional activity itself is primary.

vs. Causative: Stimulus-subject psych verbs (O filme emocionou Maria) look causative because a stimulus acts on a participant. They remain Psychological because the semantic focus is the participant's mental state, not a physical result in a Patient. Stimulus-subject frames are the most causative-like members and are related to Causative as a perspective pair (may warrant dual tagging).

vs. Inchoative: Reflexive emotional verbs (João se alegrou, Maria se entristeceu) encode entry into an emotional state — they sit directly at the Psychological/Inchoative boundary. Default to Psychological when the psychological domain is primary; Inchoative when the change-of-state structure is primary and the emotional content is secondary.

vs. Stative: Stative-aspect psychological frames (amar, saber, temer) are aspectually static but remain Psychological because domain takes precedence over aspect. The distinguishing question: if the frame describes a property holding of an entity (height, nationality) → Stative; if it describes a mental state of a sentient participant → Psychological.

vs. Attribute (the modality boundary): This is the sharpest new boundary. Epistemic frames divide by the Senser gate:

• Senser present — a thinker's confidence in a belief (Certeza, whose definition requires the #Pensador/Cognizer) → Psychological (cognition).
• Senser absent — possibility or probability predicated of a proposition (Possibilidade, Probabilidade; bearer is a state of affairs, no sentient participant) → Attribute (modal-attribute sub-kind).

Worked contrast: the possibility lemma family itself splits — a frame where an Agente/Cognizer considers which of several possible events will happen is Psychological (cognition), while Possibilidade/Probabilidade as a property of a hypothetical event is Attribute. One lemma family, correctly distributed by the Senser gate.

Note on modality. Modality (possibility, probability, necessity, obligation, capability) is a cross-cutting feature, not a namespace — there is no @modal. Only Senser-bearing epistemic states (a thinker's certainty, belief, doubt) fall under Psychological. Senser-less epistemic modality → Attribute; deontic modality → Situation / Action / Stative by perspective; dynamic/capability modality → Attribute. See the reference specification (Event Structure and Namespace Meta-Frames, §6.8) for the full disposition.